SOUTHERN RAILWAY (SR)

WAY DOWN SOUTH

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AVAILABLE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018

COLOUR THROUGHOUT

By Terry Dorrity

ISBN 978-1-911262-18-3

For about a hundred and forty years, thousands of steam locomotives hauled passenger and goods trains in almost every corner of Great Britain playing a pivotal role in the economic and social history of the country. In the 1960s, although nearing the end of their reign, they were still very much part of everyday life and the sight and sound of them was an integral feature of the rural and urban landscape. Like steam, this sight has now evaporated and the photographs in this book are intended to evoke this scene: nostalgic to some, of historic interest to others. Terence Dorrity has captured, in glorious colour, the fading scene in Southern England.

The Book of the SOUTHERN MOGULS Part One

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IAN SIXSMITH, Richard Derry

Briefly at the first rank of Southern locomotive working and for many decades its solid and stalwart mixed traffic backbone, the Southern Moguls were numerous and widespread, from Kent to Cornwall and remained in service almost to the last year of steam on the Southern Region of BR. There were four separate classes, the two cylinder N and U and the three cylinder N1 and U1. The first part covers the N and N1 and employing the usual Book Of format, the lengthy works history of each one is fully covered with photographs of every loco in all their complex variations. Part Two, U and U1 Classes, follows soon.

Part One N and N1 Classes

31400-31414

31810-31821, 31823-31875

31822, 31876-31880

SOUTHERN NOUVEAU - And the Lineside

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OUT OF PRINT

Edited by George Reeve and Leslie Tibble

The Southern Railway inherited all the myriad buildings and structures and a glorious gallimaufry of lineside objects from its three large and very different constituents. Little of it was modern and much of it was rooted in the preceding century.

It was a vast collection of buildings, everything in style from Italianate to Mock Tudor and Gothic Revival as well as examples of anything else dreamed up along the way. Huts, signalboxes, stations in corrugated iron, brick or wood and sometimes all three, abounded across the system from Kent to Cornwall.

A Fresh Wind then blew through the Southern. All new work and replacements, from signalboxes to fencing, would be done using standard components produced by the company; much of the raw material even came from its own quarry. What these products had in common was the new dynamic medium of reinforced and pre-stressed concrete.

Concrete items, from entire huts and footbridges, to humble posts in every conceivable size and configuration, poured out of the special concrete works at Exmouth Junction and slowly the look of the Southern began to change. And that was before the celebrated Southern Art Deco buildings began to appear.

This a comprehensive record and account of those years, of developments which rippled out across the wider BR network until even the 1970s. It uses a huge range of photographs and drawings, allied to detailed description, of almost every facet of the Southern as evolved during its lifetime and beyond into BR days. There is simply no other single source in which almost the entire spectrum of The Lineside of one major railway company/Region can be found. SIGNALLING is different  something for another day!

Posts

Platforms

Nameboards

Bridges

Huts

Stores

Stations

Engine Sheds

Signal Boxes

The OKEHAMPTON LINE The Southern Railway Route between Exeter, Okehampton Tavistock and Plymouth and the branch lines to Callington, Stonehouse Pool, Cattewater, Sutton Harbour and Turnchapel

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PUBLISHED 21 NOVEMBER

By John Nicholas and George Reeve

First reprint 2003. Second reprint updated and considerably expanded 2016 to include all the branch lines, new information, drawings plans and 300 new and unpublished photographs. The Okehampton Line closed in 1970 under a flood of protest and has lain dormant for almost 50 years. The line passed over the spectacular heights of Dartmoor and down the banks of the imposing River Tamar and offered travellers an alternative route to Plymouth. Passing through some of Devons major market towns, Okehampton and Tavistock, locals have long lamented the passing of their links with the capital when coaches for London were an everyday occurrence. The line has seen a revival in recent years in the shape of a proposed Park and Ride service to Tavistock, from Plymouth, and the purchase of Okehampton Station where it is again possible to travel over rails to the nearby Meldon Quarry. The history has been meticulously detailed by the authors and includes many interviews with former employees on the line. The book now includes a new chapter covering the possible reopening of the line and a chapter on the line today.

SOUTHERN BIG TANKS 1

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G16 4-8-0Ts

30492-30495

By Ian Sixsmith

The Southern inherited small classes designed for specific tasks, to a greater extent than the other companies. To the LSWR for instance, with a new, modern hump yard in prospect at Feltham, it made sense to specially build four giant eight-coupled tanks for the work; it was a very rare instance of creating such a 'specialised heavy shunter' in this country.

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SOUTHERN BIG TANKS 2

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H16 4-6-2Ts

30516-30520

By Ian Sixsmith

While the four giant Urie G16 4-8-0Ts shunted the vast new Feltham Yard a new, powerful class of locos was needed for the resulting transfer work and these were the five H16 4-6-2Ts. The boiler, firebox and bogie were the same and the cylinders and motion almost the same, with only small dimensional differences. Both classes projected size and power and though the working activities of both, on the Southern and British Railways varied over their lives, in the main they remained rigorously devoted to goods work.

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SOUTHERN BIG TANKS 3

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Z 0-8-0Ts

30950-30957

By Ian Sixsmith

It remains a minor mystery in British steam practice that the 0-8-0T was never remotely popular, in marked contrast to almost everywhere else in the world. The mighty Zs came about, however, as a more powerful replacement generation of shunters, a natural step up from the traditional 0-6-0T, in step with European and North American developments. Prodigious shunting machines, in the end they proved too powerful for much of the work that was available to them, and ended up most famously as bankers on the formidable Exeter Central-St David's incline.

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SOUTHERN BIG TANKS 4

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W 4-6-2Ts

31911 to 31925

By Ian Sixsmith

Of the Southern Big Tanks these were the only ones that could remotely be described as conventional. They were also the most numerous. Again, though, the job of these London Tanks was highly specific  transfer work in and around and between the yards and sidings of the capital; their roots in the ill-starred River Tanks saw that they did not venture on to passenger work. Like the Zs, they too found lasting attention after being drafted as replacements on the Exeter banking work. Prior to this they had rarely strayed west of Windsor, let alone Winchester!

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LINES TO TORRINGTON

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By John Nicholas and George Reeve

It is now more than 30 years since publication of the First Edition in 1984, shortly after the line was closed. Fortunately when I first researched the line in the 1970s several of the men who worked on the line, including Harold Mock at Fremington, Owen Hatherell at Bideford, Sid Pring at Torrington, Fred Cooper at Petrockstow and Ernest Holwill of the North Devon Clay Company kindly contributed reminiscences of their work on the line which extended back to the South Western era. Originally research was concerned with construction of a model of the line in the Edwardian period; the model has been completed but the amount of information gathered resulted in the book. In recent years George Reeve and I have collected much more information, original documents and photographs so we decided to write a second edition. The order and contents of the chapters have been changed since 1984 to bring Lines To Torrington into a similar format to our recent books on the LSWR in the West of England. Some of the broad gauge content concerning the North Devon Railway between Crediton and Barnstaple has been published in our book The North Devon Line (Irwell Press 2010) so is not included here.

MAIN LINE to the WEST PART 4 - THE BRANCH LINES

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By John Nicholas and George Reeve

Final volume in the series, completing a monumental work of reference on this popular main line, Basingstoke to Exeter. This brings many details and developments up to date but more importantly ties in all the many branches which sprouted so delightfully at regular intervals across Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset and Devon. Some are barely known to the general reader, others are timeless icons, the English Country Branch Line personified.

Describes in detail with pictures and plans the branches to Seaton, Sidmouth, Lyme Regis, Exmouth, Amesbury, Bulford Military Camps, Chard; the Alton line of Oh, Mr Porter! fame is there, and even the old lines south from Andover to the margins of Southampton.

Includes many unpublished new photographs and an INDEX to all four volumes, will be of inestimable value to a work now approaching 1,300 pages.

THE BOOK OF THE H15 and S15 4-6-0s

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BY PETER SWIFT

In 2008, Irwell Press published The Book Of The King Arthur 4-6-0s, to complete a sequence of three volumes on the named express locomotives of the pre-second world war Southern Railway. In this volume, we will look at the mixed traffic and freight versions of the King Arthur, which the Southern classified H15 and S15. Whilst the H15s were all basically LSWR locomotives, although the last fifteen were built or rebuilt by the Southern, the S15s, like the King Arthurs, were the products of two very different groups of locomotive designers. All three classes were initially produced from the Eastleigh based design team of Robert Urie, the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & South Western Railway. All were solidly built, easily maintained and, once initial problems with heated axleboxes had been overcome, reliable.

The Book of the MERCHANT NAVY PACIFICS

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RICHARD DERRY with Ian Sixsmith

Second Edition; greatly upgraded and expanded including new sixteen page colour section

Scarcely can a railway board have entered on such a time of frustrating maintenance work, disappointing performance, lows mixed with thrilling highs, uncertainty, expense and worry with such an innocuous phrase - 'Ten New Main Line Locomotives'. They were two sides of a coin, the Merchant Navy Pacifics - love 'em, hate 'em, scorn versus adulation; seldom could the phrases 'brilliant steaming' be conjoined so often with 'heavy maintenance', or the words 'exhilarating performance' with 'caught fire'*.

The Book of the M7 0-4-4Ts

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By Peter Swift

The ubiquitous passenger tank engine of Southern England, detailed and examined as never before. All the usual 'Book Of' goodies - works and shed data, and endless, dazzling, absorbing detail. There was no official differentiation between the engines and, until Southern days, there were no differences in the uses to which an M7 could be put. However, the various types of M7 had distinctive differences which are apparent to the locomotive historian and important to the modeller. They are teased out and demonstrated here for the first time.

The Book of the T9 4-4-0s

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Usual Book Of format, with comprehensive history, photographs, every detail variation and change, works histories. The nations favourite 4-4-0, a splendid Victorian design modernised by the Southern and best remembered for a protracted final fling on the Withered Arm west of Exeter, out across Dartmoor to the sea at Padstow. Recently issued by Hornby as one of the firms superlatively detailed models; the thousands of OO enthusiasts out there who bought one can hardly wait to get started on customising them using this book.

Don't forget that in 2009 TVP will be releasing the first of two progammes covering the former Southern routes west of Exeter with a detailed commentary by Mike Arlett. BY SOUTHERN TO THE FAR WEST will retail at £16.95

MAIN LINE to the WEST Part 1 - BASINGSTOKE TO SALISBURY

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First proposals for a central main railway line from London to the port of Falmouth through Salisbury and Exeter came in the 1830s, and the first section as far as Basingstoke was opened in 1840 as part of the London & Southampton Railway, which in line with its plans for expansion soon became the London & South Western Railway. The Bishopstoke to Salisbury Milford branch opened in 1847 but the route from London to Salisbury was indirect, so a direct Basingstoke to Salisbury line was promoted and after delays following the Railway Mania the single track branch from Basingstoke to Andover was opened in 1854, extended to Salisbury Milford in 1857, and then to Salisbury Fisherton in 1859. The Basingstoke & Salisbury Railway is the subject of Part One.

Don't forget that TVP have released two progammes covering the former Southern routes west of Exeter with a detailed commentary by Mike Arlett. BY SOUTHERN TO THE FAR WEST will retail at £16.95 Transport Video Publishing

MAIN LINE to the WEST VOLUME 2 - SALISBURY to YEOVIL

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The Salisbury & Yeovil line was the central part of the Southerns Main Line to the West. Promoted and built by an independent local company, its stations were well placed for the centres of Salisbury, Tisbury, Gillingham, Sherborne and Yeovil. The station at the small village of Templecombe prospered as a junction with the Somerset & Dorset line, the route for much freight traffic to and from the west. Here coal, stone, manufactured goods, milk and Burton beer from the Midland line was transferred. Going north went cider from Whimple, rabbits from Dartmoor, fruit and flowers from the Tamar Valley and watercress from Hampshire. The South Western worked and later bought the line, at a very high price, and fast trains from Waterloo provided good services for both business and holiday passengers. Although Beeching cuts reduced the lines status to little more than a single track byway, today it provides a good and frequent service to London. Part One covered Basingstoke to Salisbury whilst Part Three will deal with the route onwards from Yeovil to Exeter.

Don't forget that TVP have released two progammes covering the former Southern routes west of Exeter with a detailed commentary by Mike Arlett. BY SOUTHERN TO THE FAR WEST will retail at £16.95

MAIN LINE to the WEST Part 3 - YEOVIL to EXETER

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REPRINTING IN FOR XMAS 2018 THROUGH POPULAR DEMAND

The characteristic feature of this main line is illustrated by station and signal box names - Yeovil Junction, Chard Junction, Axminster (Junction for Lyme Regis), Seaton Junction, Sidmouth Junction and Exmouth Junction. Principal Waterloo expresses often passed towns like Crewkerne, Axminster and Honiton, but then stopped at junction stations in almost uninhabited countryside. This feature of six branch line junctions in less than 50 miles was on the one hand fascinating for railway enthusiasts, and on the other hand frustrating for passengers travelling to and from towns and villages away from the main line, particularly after the Beeching closures.

Between well located stations at Sherborne and Exeter Central many of the stations were built in open countryside whilst the main line avoided towns of Yeovil, Chard, Colyton and Ottery St Mary. Only Honiton had a convenient station  the lines Engineer Joseph Locke was the towns M.P.

Don't forget that TVP have released two progammes covering the former Southern routes west of Exeter with a detailed commentary by Mike Arlett. BY SOUTHERN TO THE FAR WEST will retail at £16.95 Transport Video Publishing

THE LYME REGIS BRANCH

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A Fabulous Reprint

The Lyme Regis branch line extended for 6¾ miles from Axminster in Devon to the historic town of Lyme Regis, just inside the western end of Dorset. The railway meandered and climbed through beautiful scenery and, to cap it all, for almost thirty years the workings were monopolised by the last three of the charismatic Adams Radial Tanks. What more could any branch line enthusiast possibly hope for?

In their forthcoming book, Martin Smith and George Reeve have put together a new history of the railway from its conception in 1897 through to its closure in 1965. The book benefits from original research and looks at the construction of the line, its opening in August 1903, its development, the train services and operations, the locomotives (not only the Radials !) and all the significant events during the railway s life. It includes around 100 superb photographs, many of which have never been published before, plus maps, plans, timetables etc etc.

THE SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.1

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The Somerset & Dorset Railway was a wonderfully charismatic and highly photogenic line, the 71½-mile journey from Bath to Bournemouth involving a slog over the rugged Mendip Hills on gradients of up to 1 in 50, then a dash along the beautiful Stour Valley through picture-book-perfect North Dorset. And then there was the S&Ds own withered arm  the oft-forgotten branch to Glastonbury, Highbridge and Burnham, which had its own branches off the branch to Wells and Bridgwater. A West Country jewel, the S&D has, over the years, justly been the subject of many books, magazine articles, videos and DVDs  and theres even a 45rpm record knocking about somewhere. So is there room for another addition to the lines already substantial bibliography? Well, yes  Irwell Press is offering something new.

Our series of six (!) books includes a substantial proportion of photographs which, to the best of our knowledge, have never been published before. And the photographs are exquisite! The books also include archive 25-inch Ordnance Survey maps of the stations, along with much of the towns or villages they served; so with various other snippets of local interest thrown in (and we have come up with oodles of delightfully quirky snippets!) the books extend beyond hard core railway matters and include a generous helping of associated local interest as well. We smugly believe that these books will offer something new even to the most diehard S&D fan.

Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

THE SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.2

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Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.3

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Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.4

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Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.5

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Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

SOMERSET & DORSET FILES No.6

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Each of the six books looks at selected stations along the line, extending through the series to every one of the 45 stations on the main line between Bath and Bournemouth, the Withered Arm to Burnham-on-Sea and the Bridgwater and Wells branches. We also have special features about selected aspects of, not only the S&D proper, but also its appendages: for example, the famous 7F 2-8-0s, Bulleid Pacifics on the S&D, the Oakhill Brewery railway etc etc. And theres even more Theres also a major feature about the run-down and closure of the line; this is accompanied by various extracts from official documents about this most controversial of closures  material which has not been seen in print before.

THE BOOK OF THE KING ARTHUR 4-6-0s

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Long-awaited volume to complete the former Southern Railway big passenger classes. Bigger and better than ever with over 200 pages of exhaustive detail and of course a sack full of photographs illustrating every phase of their existence and almost every one of the endless detail variations.

THE BOOK OF THE LORD NELSON 4-6-0s

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In the latest in the popular Book Of locomotive series author Richard Derry returns us to his pet Southern Railway and the remarkable Lord Nelson 4-6-0s. Famous in the 1930s for working express boat trains such as the Golden Arrow and Night Ferry, they were somewhat overshadowed by the Bulleid Pacifics after the war still they continued to run main line expresses right into the 1960s. All were named after celebrated British Naval Heroes Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and the other great Sea Dogs who saw off the Spanish, French and Dutch over hundreds of years of glorious Empire. October 21st is Trafalgar Day and the 200th Anniversary of Nelsons brilliant victory  publication is scheduled to coincide with the great day.

The Book of the LORD NELSONS - A Photographic Accompaniment 1

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Following on from Richard Derry's book on the Lord Nelson 4-6-0s we have pleasure in producing another of the very popular Photographic Accompaniments. All new photos and something all Southern fans must have! All the Lord Nelson's were named after celebrated British Naval Heroes  Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and the other great Sea Dogs who saw off the Spanish, French and Dutch over hundreds of years of glorious Empire. October 21st is Trafalgar Day and the 200th Anniversary of Nelsons brilliant victory.Series. Don't forget to buy the main book too!

The Book of the LORD NELSONS - A Photographis Accompaniment 2

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Following on from Richard Derry's book on the Lord Nelson 4-6-0s we have pleasure in producing another of the very popular Photographic Accompaniments. All new photos and something all Southern fans must have! All the Lord Nelson's were named after celebrated British Naval Heroes  Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and the other great Sea Dogs who saw off the Spanish, French and Dutch over hundreds of years of glorious Empire. October 21st is Trafalgar Day and the 200th Anniversary of Nelsons brilliant victory.Series. Don't forget to buy the main book too!

THE BOOK OF THE WEST COUNTRY AND BATTLE OF BRITAIN PACIFICS

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FOURTH REPRINT OF THIS POPULAR TITLE

OUT NOW!

Little that is wholly new remains to be said concerning any major class of British steam locomotive, though of course there is still a lot to celebrate and illustrate. A similar point was made in the five preceding books of this series. The Book of the BR Standards, The Book of the Coronation Pacifics, The Book of the Royal Scots, The Book of the Princess Royal Pacifics and the Book of the Merchant Navy Pacifics. There are always a few nuggets to be had, and one or two particularly glistening ones have been introduced to the story of the West Country and Battle of Britain Pacifics.d for the third time. AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 2008

Illustrated History of EXMOOR'S RAILWAYS

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A look at the railways of one of the South Wests most attractive corners, though it ranges a little beyond the true geographical confines. The book devotes a separate section to each of the areas five railway lines, Barnstaple - Ilfracombe, Barnstaple - Taunton, Taunton - Minehead, Lynton and Barnstaple and the ancient West Somerset Mineral Railway. Considerable primary source research has been undertaken in a effort to come up with something a little different and it is hoped that the end result provides a concise, and occasionally offbeat, insight into railway operations in West Somerset and North Devon.